Signs
by hotchityhotchhotch
Summary: Oneshot. Can be read alone or as a sequel to "Tell." Now living in London, Emily reflects on her relationship with Hotch and contemplates going home for a visit six months after leaving him. COMPLETE.


**A/N: This is a oneshot for SussiRay. Happy birthday!**

**It can be read alone or as a sequel to "Tell." My biased opinion is that you should read "Tell."**

Emily set her briefcase down on a pristine black leather chair and fished through her mail. Bills, magazines, junk, and a postcard. She didn't know of anyone who was traveling. The picture of the Washington Monument on the front told her this wasn't from a traveling friend, though. She smiled and flipped it over, releasing the zipper on her pencil skirt and breathing more deeply than she had all day.

_Dear Emily,_

_This is Jack. My dad said I could send you a postcard again. Can you send me another? Big Ben. Please?_

_Jack_

She was done reading it before she slipped down onto the couch. Jack's large children's print only allowed him to fit that much on the postcard, and the "Please?" was squeezed in rather tight. Hotch had filled in the address for him.

Emily's departure to a foreign land had fascinated Jack, and though she hadn't gotten too close to him and had never been introduced to him as a love interest of Hotch's in any way, he had asked his father if he could send her letters. The idea that a postcard could make it from his house all the way to London had him utterly thrilled. This was the fourth he'd sent.

She found herself fanning a light veil of tears from her eyes. Not tears for Jack, but tears for his father. Even after six months in London, she still wasn't sure whether she'd made the right decision. There had never been any doubt on her end that she and Hotch had a connection, something intense that could easily run deeper than friendship if they would have let it. And they had. At least, they had tried. Hotch's affections for her hadn't gone unnoticed by his girlfriend before her, who, with her amicable termination of the relationship, had urged Hotch to go after whom he really wanted. He had given up a relationship with someone lovely to be with Emily, someone damaged, someone flawed, someone insecure and feeling misplaced.

At first, she had been flattered. The initial flirting had made her feel twenty-two again, had made her forget about the Doyle mess for a bit, and had shown her a whole new side of Hotch, too. Her departure from the team had been rather quick, and after that, the adventures began with a proper courtship—dinners, hand-in-hand strolls through the Botanic Gardens, late nights spent over greasy pizza and movies in one of their living rooms.

Hotch had nearly killed her with the wait before their first kiss. But there had been method behind his madness. After four excruciating dates, he'd finally changed his kiss goodnight on the cheek to one on the lips. The anticipation alone earned it the top spot in her rankings of first kisses. Daydreaming of it was still a daily ritual of hers. Sometimes it lulled her to sleep after a grueling day at work.

As her and Hotch's romance had burgeoned, she had transitioned into a new job in Counterterrorism and had found the position quite suitable to her skill set and interests. But no matter how fitting her new job had seemed, no matter how promising things had been with Hotch, she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that D.C. wasn't home for her anymore. After a life full of moving around, she'd lived in the nation's capital longer than she'd lived anywhere else. How it hadn't felt like home, she had never been able to figure out. All she had known was that if everything was going right and she still felt restless, then the right thing to do was leave.

Though it had killed her to let go of someone she'd wanted for so long, she had begun to think of exit strategies. She hadn't had to brainstorm for long. Hotch had started talking about telling Jack about their relationship sometime in the near future, though he'd seemed a little wary. She knew she had just been looking for a sign. Hotch showing a single father's natural hesitance wasn't _really _a red flag of any kind. But she shamelessly took it as a sign anyway. She'd told Hotch about how ill at ease she still felt, how she sometimes couldn't sleep at night because even though she'd returned from Paris several months ago, part of her was still wandering the world somewhere.

When he'd asked her if their relationship was a determining factor in her wanting to leave, she'd done something for which she still hadn't quite forgiven herself. She'd lied, told him that she was scared to make things with him more real. He'd happily offered to slow things down, but instead of putting her head on straight and looking for signs to stay, she'd called up her good friend, Clyde Easter.

She didn't know when she'd become such a big fan of signs, but the fact that Clyde still held onto her spot "for just a little longer" had been convenient. Even more convenient was the fact that with how much she'd traveled in her lifetime, culture shock wasn't a problem at all and she was able to hit the ground running as the new director of London's Interpol office. It wasn't by any means an easy job, but then again, she didn't have a degree from an Ivy League college, as well as successful runs with the CIA and FBI, so that she could have an easy job.

The hardest thing about the past six months wasn't work-related, no. The hardest part was getting the postcards. Weeks would go by where her only reminder of what she had walked away from came in the form of memories. Memories that, like any others, grew more muddled over time. Became mixed with fantasy. But every time she dug through a pile of mail and saw that one of Jack's postcards had arrived, she would be dragged right back to that day…

The breakup had been official for weeks, but Hotch's car had been waiting in front of her apartment building. He'd paid the cab she'd called and had insisted on driving her to the airport himself. She'd plastered on a smile and had let him, seeing no way out of it. She'd thought she'd said her painful goodbye already, a day before over a long lunch with the team, but Hotch's real goodbye had turned out to be infinitely worse.

"If I had a couple grand floating around, I'd buy a ticket and come wait with you," Hotch had said, not implying that she was scared to wait alone, but that he wasn't ready to let go.

"I'm sorry," she had said, closing her arms around him and giving him a good solid farewell hug.

"You can always change your mind," Hotch had said hopefully, his deep voice rolling from his lips to her cheek.

"Not that kind of sorry," Emily had corrected him. "This feels…right. Even though it hurts, it feels right, and I can't ignore my gut."

Hotch had tucked his lips in neatly and nodded. "Come back soon for a visit."

"Of course, I promise. Once I get settled in and I feel like I can take some time off."

"Sounds good," Hotch had murmured.

Emily had eyed the long security line. "I'd better get going. I hate being the last one on the plane."

"Wait," Hotch had said as Emily had backed out of his embrace.

"What?"

With an intense stare, he'd thumbed her cheek and kissed her before she could object. And when his lips felt as perfect as ever against hers, she wouldn't have dreamed of objecting.

"Hotch…" she'd whispered once she'd placed the albeit perfect kiss as a last ditch effort on his part to change her mind.

"I was just checking," he'd said.

"Checking what?"

"To see if you're sure."

Emily had refrained from crying in front of him. She had grabbed hold of his hand, though, and had given it a squeeze. "I have to go."

"Have a safe flight," Hotch had said quietly. Their fingers hadn't separated until Emily had walked too far away for them to touch.

Now, in her expensive London flat, Emily remembered for the umpteenth time that she'd never fulfilled that promise. She hadn't been back for a visit, not even once. She remembered her broken promise with every postcard, and of course every phone call and email—it was the twenty-first century, after all. She wasn't sure what made this time different from any of the other times she'd gotten Jack's postcards, but she found herself reaching for her phone and dialing Hotch with the intention of doing something much more profound than simply telling him she'd gotten something special in the mail.

If he was having a good day, he would just be sitting down to lunch right now. If he was having a normal day, he'd be going hungry until dinner. Whichever it was, she knew he would be glad to hear from her.

"Hey," he said cheerily when he picked up. "You're alive."

"It's been a few weeks, hasn't it?" Emily said with an apologetic laugh. She curled her feet underneath her and played with her pinky toe.

'Four or five, I think," he said. Emily heard the distinct sound of a sandwich wrapper. Good. Hotch was getting a lunch break. Either that, or eating over a pile of paperwork.

"Wow, time flies. I'm sorry…" Emily said.

"Don't be." Emily heard Hotch's office door close. She knew that sound well after so many years. "I'm the king of letting work get in the way."

"Yeah, well…I did promise I would come back for a visit, and I still haven't. I got Jack's latest postcard, and every time I get one I remember how much of a schmuck I am for not visiting."

"_That one_ I'll let you feel guilty about," Hotch said with a light chuckle. "The weather's great here. Not too cold. Come back, see your parents, at least."

Emily scoffed. "Please, my mother's been out here to see me already to give me her professional opinion on how crazy I was taking this job after all I went through with Doyle. I was thinking of coming back to see you. And everyone else, you know. I miss you guys."

"We miss you, too. You going to make it back this time instead of just talking about it?"

"You know what? Yes." Emily took her laptop from the coffee table and opened it up. "I'll buy a ticket right now."

"What about work? Isn't that a little short notice?"

"It's Friday. I haven't even taken a sick day yet since I started, so I can take a long weekend. They can do without me in the office for a few days." Emily let her mind weave intricate descriptions of how it might feel to be back in Hotch's arms, even though she was sure her chances had been shot six months ago when she'd walked away from him after his final plea. "Wow, I'm being presumptuous. Do you have a few hours free this weekend to do lunch or dinner or something? I'm booking a flight that gets in at ten-thirty in the morning."

"Actually, I've got…all weekend. Jack's visiting relatives with Jessica this weekend in Philadelphia. Not to say you should spend the entire weekend with your ex. I'm sure you'd like to see the team, too. I just…needed to take my turn being presumptuous, I guess," he said, laughing at himself.

Emily's heart warmed at Hotch's laughter. Whenever it reached her ears, it sounded like a song. "No, no, I'd…love to catch up with you alone first for a while, if that wouldn't be too terribly awkward. Just awkward enough to require a drink."

"Guess that rules out breakfast."

"Ah, not if we call it brunch and I have a mimosa," Emily pointed out.

"And what if _I _need a drink?"

"Luckily, you're not the one who should feel awkward. You're not the idiot who walked away," Emily said before thinking.

Hotch chose not to dig deeper into what Emily meant by that. "I'll pick you up at ten-thirty."

"Okay, great…I'll see you then."

—

Emily rolled her carry-on toward the sliding glass doors at Dulles International Airport. She didn't even have time to kill waiting for a bag. Or waiting for Hotch. He was already standing right outside and smiled the instant he spotted her. Her heart thrashed violently upon seeing him and only grew more crazed when she felt his arms circle around her. "Wow, you look great," Emily managed. Smelled great, too. The usual light musk on his neck mixed well with the late winter breeze that had her wanting to crawl inside of his wool jacket with him.

"Please, look at you," Hotch marveled, pulling away from her. "You look amaz—" He laughed against her lips when she surprised him, but his laugh smoothed into a pleased sigh before long. "Okay then," he said after a tentative meeting of tongues that made them both forget how to breathe properly. "What's—what's that all about?"

"I don't even know," Emily said, shaking her head and laughing behind her hand. "I'm sorry," she said, cringing, "that was…incredibly rude. I didn't plan that, I swear."

"Yes, you did," Hotch said with a slanted eyebrow. "I know that look on your face."

Emily blushed under the pressure. "Okay, if I planned it, how awful does that make me?" she asked, her tongue flitting out to wet her cherry red lips.

"Not awful at all. I'm a…single guy. I can kiss whom I please."

"No, I mean, in terms of me being the one who walked away after you gave me every reason to stay, and then coming back and assuming it was okay to just kiss you and expect everything to be better again."

Hotch slid a hand down Emily's forearm until he found her hand, most likely chilly as it wasn't gloved. He warmed it up in his. "I know what you meant. But why the sudden change of heart, or whatever this is? I mean…do you want to come back? For good?"

"I don't know for sure," Emily said with a shrug. "I mean, it feels like the right thing to do, in the moment, anyway. I don't know if that means it's necessarily a good idea. I do have an amazing job in London."

"You're in the capital of the world's most powerful nation. You know you don't have to worry about a job that suits you. A job you enjoy. You walked away from more than one. If your job were enough on its own to keep you in London, you wouldn't have come back for this visit. So, what else do you have in London?"

Emily grinned and looked up to the sky. "I…I don't know. Nothing, really. Everything else I want is here. Maybe I just needed to get Europe out of my system."

"Can I ask you something?" Hotch asked after a long silence.

"Of course."

"Do you remember when you broke things off between us, how you said you thought you didn't come back from Paris as the same person you were before? That…how did you word it…part of you was still wandering around somewhere else?"

"Yeah."

"Well, did you find it?"

Emily sucked on her lip and played with the leather of Hotch's glove. "No, I don't think so. I think that was a load of bull, really. But—me leaving _was_ still the right thing for me to do at the time. I needed to rule out the possibility that London was where I belonged. There were all these signs I couldn't ignore—"

"Those weren't signs pointing to London," Hotch corrected her. "Those were signs pointing you anywhere but here. You said it yourself. You wanted away from here."

"Okay, true. You're right."

"Come again?" Hotch teased. He enjoyed the mildly annoyed look Emily gave him. "You and all your _signs_," he said in wonderment. "I never thought of you as such a superstitious person."

"I'm not superstitious. I'm just a coward and I guess I wanted to blame the universe instead of taking responsibility for how I felt."

"So you're not thinking about signs right now?" Hotch asked. He found himself kissing the corner of Emily's lips and reeling her in.

"Well, I wasn't looking for them, but there's one that's pretty obvious. You had the weekend free so I didn't have to hog any of your father-son time."

"And I'm not seeing anybody. But If I know you at all, you checked with JJ or Garcia if I was single. You didn't risk that."

"No other signs?"

Hotch rolled his eyes. "Do you need them? Do you need a bus to drive by with our picture plastered on it? And this isn't me begging. I'm simply trying to understand your logic."

"There is no logic this time," Emily said with finality. "The signs were just scapegoats. It was really truly my gut that led me to London."

"What's your gut telling you this time?"

Emily got one last look at Hotch's curious eyes before she pressed her lips against his. Her stomach grumbled loudly enough for Hotch to hear. It sent them both chuckling. "It's telling me I'm starving and I would love to go get a bite to eat with you."

**A/N: Well? What did you think? Please leave a review! By the way, the prompt was "Emily returns from Europe." :)**


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